Op-Ed: Press is protecting the president

Published 11:00 pm, Monday, October 1, 2012

It has been unflaggingly obvious to me over the last two weeks that our country and its foreign policy (or lack thereof) was to blame for the deaths of an American ambassador and three other Americans in Libya. I am furious that their deaths have resulted in panoply of lies, cover-ups and "misinformation" on the part of the president and his minions like his press secretary and Susan Rice, the ambassador to the U.N. This woman looked the American people in the eye and blatantly lied when she said on air that the deaths were attributable to the anti-Muslim trailer on YouTube.

How convenient for Barack Obama, his U.N. liaison and even his secretary of state, that someone (whom the president described on Jay Leno's show "as a little shady") produced that video just in time to act as cover-up for the failed, miserable diplomacy of this White House. There, in fact, is no policy, no diplomacy.

But you know what infuriates me even more? The American press. Radio, TV and Internet outlets anger and disgust me because they are NOT looking for answers, not asking the questions. They apparently are not even interested in uncovering the truth of what happened to Ambassador Stevens and his security "staff" of two, plus one other. I demand to know what happened that day, and yet not one mainstream media outlet is helping me. Yet we have an administration that has changed its story several times in 10 days, been contradicted by Libyan officials twice, and the administration's Sunday news show "attack dogs" were out doing damage control -- all with different versions of the story, some contradicting each other! Ambassador Rice should resign or be fired.

If you people of the press continue on this tack of protecting this president, giving him a pass on all substantive issues just to get him re-elected, then you all deserve the ever-declining readership and viewership that you are experiencing. Your subscriptions will continue to plummet and TV's will continue to be turned to other programming, because the "news" that you choose and select to feed us is not news at all, butopinion. Shame on you all for calling yourselves "journalists."

Put this president's feet to the fire, stop asking him about his wife and kids, his preference in foods, his favorite tunes, and ask him questions similar to what a real journalist, Jorge Ramos ,of Univision, asked: Why do we have record unemployment, Mr. President? Record deficits? Why did you not know the figure of the national debt when asked that? What would YOU do specifically to get jobs back? Where was the security for our ambassador in Libya? Why did you elect to not attend your security briefing the morning after this incident?

And come to think of it, why have you only attended about 30 percent of those morning briefings since being president? Do you not take my security seriously?

Why did it take so long to recover the ambassador's body? Why were there only Lebanese guarding the Consulate? Why were there no Marines there, especially on 9/11? Why did you not come out on TV and address the American people? Why did you choose to go to Las Vegas? Why do you go to so many fundraisers now? Why don't you stay in D.C. while Rome is burning?

At least act like a president even if you don't know how to be one. And for God's sake, be a man and tell the press to be fair to Romney, tell them to give him equal time and tell them to back off from the filtered coverage that only you and Richard Axelrod permit.